


03/12/19: okay, so what are we?

by excelsi_or



Series: to a boy i love right now [20]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24202864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excelsi_or/pseuds/excelsi_or
Summary: She and Jihoon get into a fight. Jihoon doesn't understand why she's so upset.
Relationships: Lee Jihoon | Woozi/Original Female Character(s)
Series: to a boy i love right now [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1252010
Kudos: 8





	03/12/19: okay, so what are we?

**Author's Note:**

> woohoo! 5/5 this week. I think I've figured out this whole posting situation. :)

_December 3_

Jihoon trails after her to her bedroom. Seungkwan ran to his room when the two of them returned bickering. She rounds on Jihoon now and through grit teeth says, “I really don’t want to see you right now, Ji. Let’s just talk about this later, okay?”

“I—”

In her bedroom doorway, she holds a hand up to stop him, the other hand on the door. “Seriously, Ji, the last thing I want to do is yell at you. You don’t understand what I’m saying and I can’t listen to your arguments right now. So,” her breath is shaky, “please leave.”

Jihoon stares at her. He doesn’t force himself into her room. She bows her head in thanks and then shuts the door. Just as Jihoon is about to leave, he hears a muffled scream, as if she’s screaming into a pillow.

They let the conversation hang in the air for two weeks. Jihoon checks his phone constantly. The ‘Do Not Disturb’ function remains off, so every time his phone rings when he’s trying to sleep and it isn’t her, he answers angrily to stop calling so late. While he feels agitated, as if he’s really done something wrong, he can’t work out why she’s angry.

She’s right, he doesn’t understand at all.

So after two weeks of radio silence, he heads home with the intent to talk to Mingyu.

“Hyung,” Mingyu calls from the couch.

Jihoon waves a hand at him as he passes, dropping his bag off in his room. When he joins Mingyu in the living room, his roommate gives him an odd look. “What…?”

“What?” Jihoon asks.

“Just you normally… shower, eat, make a giant mess before you come and sit with me.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes. He stretches his legs out to the coffee table. When they’d first moved in together, three years ago, they’d agreed to have the table just far enough so it was comfortable for Jihoon’s legs. Therefore, Mingyu’s are bent and he’s slouching into the couch, likely not good for his spine.

“What’s going on, hyung?” He reaches for the remote to mute the TV.

“Unmute it.” Jihoon adjusts himself on the couch. “Weird to talk about this stuff in silence.”

Slowly, Mingyu presses the volume button. “What’s… up?”

Jihoon lays the issue on the table. He explains how his last lunch date had gone. They’d been talking about her family, how she was intending to go for that weekend. She’d asked him if he would be able to spend the weekend with her.

“I said I couldn’t and she suddenly got really mad.”

Mingyu bobs his head slowly. “Noona’s been fine, honestly. She doesn’t talk about you and shuts down _any_ attempts at talking about you, but she’s good.”

Jihoon exhales sharply. He isn’t sure if he’s happy or not about that information.

“So what did she say exactly? Did she say why she wanted you to come? Did you say why you couldn’t go?” Mingyu lifts a curious eyebrow. “Why don’t you want to go?”

“She asked me if I would go to meet her family. She brought it up…” Jihoon shakes his head; unable to remember when the conversation had happened. “She brought it up a few weeks ago or something. I said maybe I would be interested in going.”

“Okay, so why don’t you want to go?”

“I—”

“Before you say you can’t because of work,” Mingyu interrupts, “let’s remember that there are no impending comebacks and that you are a producer, not the idol.”

Jihoon sighs. Toying with his fingers, he mumbles, “I’m scared they won’t like me.”

“Great, did you tell her that?”

Jihoon tips his head. “Well, no, because she got upset.”

Mingyu leans his head back against the couch. “Hyung, I need exact words here.”

So Jihoon takes Mingyu through a step-by-step account of what he can remember from the conversation. She’d said something about visiting her family for the weekend; an invite was extended to him. She said that her family was interested in meeting him. He insisted he was busy—“bullshit,” Mingyu mutters—and she immediately got upset.

“Okay…” Mingyu takes a deep breath, “how many times has she asked you?”

“This is the first time.”

“Then how many times has she brought it up? ‘Cause if it’s more than three times now and you’re _still_ saying no, well… I can see why she’s mad.”

Jihoon stares at Mingyu, waiting for an explanation.

“It sounds like 1) you haven’t told her why you don’t want to go and 2) it sounds like she’s offended that you don’t want to meet her family.”

“So how long is too long to not talk to her about it? Do I wait for her to reach out to me?”

“If you think she was that mad about it, yes.”

Jihoon pouts in Mingyu’s direction. He hates being cute, but it works with Mingyu. He has no shame in this house.

Sighing, Mingyu relents. “She _is_ that mad at you.”

She waits a few more days before asking Jihoon if he has time to go for coffee. She has plans to go for dinner with Taehyung and Jihoon swears it’s a tactic for her to have an excuse to escape.

When he arrives at the café near his place and sees her with a cake ready for them to share, he wishes he’d thought of having his own escape tactic ready. She’s dolled up, in tight jeans and his yellow silk shirt, buttoned just enough to cover her bra. She looks amazing and he swears it’s another tactic.

“Hey,” she says when he sits. Neither moves for a kiss in greeting, but her smile is soft and everything’s okay.

“Hi.”

She nudges the extra fork to him. His favourite coffee is set on the table already and he knows her water bottle is likely in her purse on the floor. “So you know we need to talk.”

“I don’t know why though.”

She chuckles. “Really?” She uses the edge of her fork to cut a small piece of cake. “Gyu didn’t say _anything_ to you?”

An embarrassed smile grows on his face. “It’s about your parents.”

She nods her head slowly. “And I want you to _understand_ why it’s a big deal to me that you don’t want to meet them.” She tips her head in question. “Is that okay?”

Jihoon nods.

“When I was growing up, my parents and I weren’t really close. My mom worked all the time in the hospital and my dad was more of an authority figure rather than someone I could tell my problems to.” She chews thoughtfully before continuing. “I love them so much and as I’ve gotten older, left the house, things are so much better. So when they started asking why I wasn’t coming home more often, I told them school was getting busy. Easy when you’re the good child and they always take your word for things.”

Swallowing hard, she leans forward on her elbows. “I was making excuses not to see them, because I wanted to spend all my time with you. I was learning about you, opening up to you,” she sighs, a smile on her face, “and it was just all I wanted to do.”

Jihoon’s heart is pounding loud in his ears, because it feels like she’s going to hit him with a punch line that they need to break up.

Reassuringly, she reaches for his hand, squeezing his fingers. “Stop thinking those thoughts, Lee Jihoon.” He’s stunned. “Reading your expression is easier than you think.”

Jihoon smiles a little and nods his head to continue.

“Getting you to open up to _me_ was its own challenge and well worth it, but I was scared that if I left too often any progress I’d made with you would just… poof.” She pops her fingers in that magician’s way when something disappears.

Jihoon wonders how true that is. Maybe when they had first started dating, but imagining it now is difficult.

“And then my parents started speculating about a boy before Christmas last year and I could deny it for a while, but my siblings wouldn’t let up about it. I used to go home at least twice a month and then all of a sudden it was a struggle to get me home for Christmas.”

She answers his unasked question. “I didn’t tell them about you, because I knew you hadn’t told your parents about me. And I didn’t want to be excited about something that you weren’t excited about.”

Jihoon bites his tongue. There’s so much he wants to say, to defend himself. But she’s right.

“I thought you were having a change of heart about us when you suggested we go to Busan a few months back, but then you never mentioned it again.”

Her voice trails off and she has nothing more to say. In the time she’s been talking, their clasped hands have become intertwined, his thumb rubbing gently back and forth across her skin. She doesn’t glance at her watch at all, doesn’t force him to speak. She waits him out like she always does.

“What are you asking from me, jagi?”

“What are we, Ji?” she asks immediately. “What are we to you?”

“I—”

“Because I have my siblings telling me that if you’re refusing to meet them in person that it’s because you don’t care. I know it’s not that, but are we a serious thing, Ji? Do you see a future with me?”

Jihoon hadn’t expected a heavy question like this when they’d sat down for cake. He expected an explanation and an apology that he’s been working for two weeks. But she doesn’t want an apology, she wants into his brain.

“I…” Jihoon watches her carefully. He writes songs about this woman, muses about a possible future with her. He doesn’t peg himself as the type to get married, but he also doesn’t see himself breaking up with her. He’s comfortable with how it is. “Are you… bored?” He knows his girlfriend is the type to get bored with people.

“Never with you, Ji. I just want to know where you stand. We’ve never talked about it.”

Comforted by this answer, he says, “I like where we are and who you are to me.”

She seems to understand what he means. He appreciates this about her, because while he’s great at expressing it in song, actual communication of his emotions is still difficult. “So why don’t you want to meet my family?”

“ _If_ they don’t like me,” he puts cake in his mouth to muffle the rest of the sentence, “what happens to us?”

“You meet them again.” The way she says it makes it sound so easy. “Family is hard, Ji. No one said it wasn’t, but my family isn’t crazy. They think your job is interesting; they like the stories I’ve told about you. They just want to meet you.”

Jihoon nods slowly, processing this. He didn’t realize that if the meeting went poorly that there was an option to try again. She preaches that first impressions matter, that if she doesn’t like the first impression, she won’t typically like the person afterwards.

“I get my judgmental nature from them.” She squeezes his hand again. “But your character is good, Ji. They can’t tell me otherwise.”

He looks away from her gaze just to process his thoughts. She stands then and comes around the table to kiss the top of his head. He looks up at her. “I’m going to be even later for my dinner with Tae oppa, but I’ll see you at mine?” Fear must flash in his eyes, because she adds, “Just to chill. We don’t have to talk about my family anymore tonight.”

“Okay.” Jihoon finishes the last of the cake. His coffee is in a to go cup, as if she knew that he wouldn’t have time to touch it. One handed, he secures the lid and lets her lead the way out of the café. Out on the street, she stares at him for a while, as if waiting for him to say goodbye.

He steps down from the doorway so that they’re more level and she pulls him out of the way of the entering foot traffic. Jihoon searches her eyes for some sign of regret or a lie. “We’re good, aren’t we?”

She laughs and closes the distance between them, pressing her lips against his. He melts into her touch, especially when her hands wrap around his neck to toy with the hair at the base of his neck. With his free hand, Jihoon pulls her closer, nearly dipping her.

With another laugh, she tosses her head back and he straightens them both. Jihoon can’t help but smile fondly at her. “Are we not allowed to have disagreements and check ins?” she asks.

Jihoon shrugs. “I don’t know how relationships work.”

“I don’t either,” she admits. “I just know how I want it to be.” Pecking his nose, he scrunches it. “And you’re surpassing any expectations I had at the beginning, Ji.”

“Am I?”

Smirking, she nods as she ruffles his hair. “In more ways than one, my love.”

Jihoon gives her a quick peck. “I’ll see you later, jagi. Tell hyung I say hi.”

“Love you,” she whispers into his ear as she hugs him goodbye.

“Love you too.”


End file.
